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Regional parks, trails and natural areas investments

Three times during the last two decades, voters across the Portland metropolitan area have invested in a network of regional parks, trails and natural areas – a drawing card for residents and businesses. Now, you’re invited to shape the future.

Voters asked Metro to buy the region's most special land, before it's too late. Habitat is protected across the Portland metropolitan area, ensuring that nature is always close to home. Two bond measures have preserved 13,000 acres and 90 miles of river and stream banks, and supported hundreds of community projects.

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Go behind the scenes at three places protected by Metro's Natural Areas Program, and learn how voters have made a difference for the region’s water quality, wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation.

Thanks to voters, Metro is investing a bond measure to purchase wildlife habitat and a levy to help care for regional parks and natural areas and improve them for visitors – including Newell Creek Canyon in Oregon City.

Bond measures approved in 1995 and 2006 buy land to protect clean water, wildlife habitat and opportunities to enjoy nature. A local option levy passed in 2013 helps care for this growing collection of natural areas by improving them for visitors, restoring habitat and engaging the community.

The next step: a system plan for Metro’s parks, trails and natural areas. By weighing in, you can help determine how regional destinations are managed and what services they will provide.

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If you have a vision for getting rid of weeds, improving water quality, creating fish and wildlife habitat or restoring nature in the Portland metropolitan area, a Metro Nature in Neighborhoods restoration grant can help get your idea off the ground.

The agreements allow Metro and its partners in the Willamette Falls Legacy Project to continue moving forward with plans for a public riverwalk along the Willamette River at the former Blue Heron paper mill site in downtown Oregon City.

In 1903, brothers John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., charged with planning a Portland parks system, came up with a novel concept: the 40-Mile Loop. The city was preparing for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, and the Olmsted brothers envisioned a signature trail around Portland and its suburbs. More than a century later, it's still not finished. But that could soon change.

Whether your roots in the region run generations deep or you moved to Oregon last week, you have your own reasons for loving this place – and Metro wants to keep it that way. Help shape the future of the greater Portland region and discover tools, services and places that make life better today.